But will it not be superfluous to mention the goodness and fertility of his ingenuity? Especially among those who know and who have heard, that he was full of the most beautiful disciplines, and who are acquainted with the multitude he produced and published to the world, so that he alone seemed to have drank nothing of the cup of oblivion, as he was endued with a power of memory which was never disturbed, and that which belongs to the oblivious, never happened to him. Besides, he never neglected fresh acquisitions, as if possessing a sufficiency of disciplines; and as one who is merely delighted with their study. But he was most remote from a nature rustic and horrid, and averse from the Muses, and particularly propense to more cultivated endowments: for on account of his singular urbanity and festivity (without transgressing the bounds of true honesty) in his common associations, sacred feasts, and other actions, he allured and charmed his familiars, and always dismissed them more cheerful and pleased. His mother, therefore, Marcella, lawfully united to his father Patricius, both of the Lycian nation, and excelling in birth and virtue, produced our philosopher, thus endued from the beginning with all these, and other gifts of nature. And[43] Minerva, the tutelar goddess of Byzantium, received him when born, and took care of him as a midwife, she being the cause of his birth in that city: but afterwards she provided for his well-being, when he was numbered among boys and young men; for she appeared once to him in a dream, and exhorted him to the study of philosophy, from whence arose his great propensity to this goddess, as he particularly performed her sacred rites, and cultivated with a greater fury (as I may say) her institutions. Lastly, his parents brought him, when born, into their native country Zanthus, consecrated to Apollo: and I cannot but think that this country happened to him by a certain divine providence; as it was requisite that he, who was to be the prince of all sciences, should be educated under the presiding deity of the Muses. Here, being instituted in the most elegant manners, he pursued moral virtues, and was accustomed to right conduct, and to a declination of its contrary, that which is base. But at that time the love of the gods, who had attended him from his nativity, manifestly appeared; for being once detained by some disease of body, and it appearing very difficult, and scarcely possible to cure him, there stood at his bed a youth of a more than ordinary appearance, so that even previous to the declaration of his name, he might be considered as[44] Telesphorus or Apollo: but the god proclaiming who he was, and pronouncing his name, touched the head of Proclus (for he stood reclining his head on Proclus’ pillow) and having immediately restored him to health, vanished from his sight. And such was the[45] divine vision, and the divine benevolence at that time exhibited to our youth.